1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to certificate confirmation methods and certificate confirmation programs for confirming certificates issued by, for example, specific organizations and to the certificates.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, in many cases, whether a certain certificate is authentic is determined based on a seal impression on the certificate. However, in the case where such a certification seal is affixed, the place of issue of certificates is limited. For this reason, in some cases, a digitized seal image is used as a certification seal.
On the other hand, with the recent development in image-related techniques, the quality of images of copying machines has been improved. Hence, it is difficult to simply distinguish between the originals of securities and certificates and copies of them. Further, with the development in digital processing techniques, it has become easy to modify documents and images to be printed. Thus, there is a high probability that securities and certificates are readily forged.
Therefore, various techniques have been invented in order to prevent forgery of securities and certificates (for example, refer to Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2002-200872). In Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2002-200872, minute boreholes that are difficult to be visually observed are formed in a base material with different shapes and arranging directions.
Meanwhile, in order to readily provide, for example, tickets, convenient stores print and sell the tickets in some cases. However, in the case where minute boreholes that are difficult to be visually observed are formed as in the techniques disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2002-200872, a special printing apparatus is required. In addition, it is also possible to print tickets on special paper with watermark. However, also in this case, special paper is required.
On the other hand, in some cases, a customer who has received a certificate may be anxious about whether the certificate is real. For example, when a customer has purchased a ticket from an agency other than the ticket-issuing agency, it is difficult or impossible for the customer to readily confirm whether the ticket is authentic.